QUETTA: Government officials, colleagues and relatives attended funeral prayers of a Pakistani woman athlete, who died in a boat wreck off the coast of Italy last month, and later laid her to rest in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta Friday morning, relatives and officials said.
The boat carrying the athlete, Shahid Raza, and more than 150 others from Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan had crashed into the rocks trying to reach the shores in Crotone, Italy on February 26.
At least 67 were killed as the boat broke into pieces and sank in rough seas, according to Italian authorities. Pakistan’s foreign office said that 17 Pakistanis had been rescued after the incident, two had been missing and two, including Raza, were dead.
Mortal remains of the late athlete were flown to the southern Pakistani city of Karachi from Rome on Thursday, according to officials and Raza’s family. From there, they were transported to Quetta via road.
“The Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis shifted Shahida’s body from Rome to Karachi but due to bad weather conditions we transported the body to Quetta in an ambulance at around 2am on Friday,” Raza Warsi, a deputy director at the ministry, told Arab News in Quetta.
A relative of Pakistani athlete Shahida Raza is holding her photo while walking with her mortal remains at her funeral in Quetta, Pakistan on March 17, 2023. (AN Photo)
Raza, a member of Pakistan’s ethnic Hazara community, had represented Pakistan in various national and international hockey and football events that took her to China, Malaysia, Iran, Qatar, and Sri Lanka as part of Pakistan’s national squads.
One of the reasons for her to leave Pakistan was that after two decades of playing for her country, the single mother with a mentally disabled son was unable to find a job, according to her family.
In search of a better life in Europe, Raza first boarded a flight to Turkiye from Pakistan in October last year. After staying in Turkiye for three months, the woman athlete along with others like her got on a wooden boat from Izmir in western Turkiye on February 22 and reached close to the Italian shores after almost four days.
Each of the migrants on the boat had paid the traffickers around 8,000 euros ($8,540) for the perilous sea journey, according to the Italian police.
“We are thankful to the Pakistani government for helping us bring back Shahida’s remains to Pakistan,” Raza’s sister, Sadia, told reporters in Quetta.
Raza was laid to rest in a Quetta graveyard, with mourners paying their last respects to the late Pakistani athlete.
“The national and provincial departments should own their players and set a job quota for them that would help them in their economic woes,” Balochistan Sports Minister Abdul Khaliq Hazara told Arab News.
The provincial sports department had acted on Raza’s application and approved remuneration for the athlete that was received by her sister as Raza had been in Turkiye, he added.
